


Would You Believe It?

by clockworkowenge



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone Has Issues, F/F, F/M, Gay Captain Swan, Genderbent Main Character(s), Henry Mills is Adorable, Henry has a mom and a dad, Killian Jones is an awesome stepdad, LGBT Friendly, M/M, Nellie Cassidy is a bitch, Outlaw Queen Fluff, Owen is my Original Character, Pansexual Owen Swan, Ruby Slippers are sassy and adorable, Sheriff Graham deserved better, Snapshots, Snowing actually get the respect they deserve from their estranged offspring, SwanQueen are co-parenting masters, rumbelle angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 10:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14788718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworkowenge/pseuds/clockworkowenge
Summary: Snapshots of what life would be like in Storybrooke if Emma was replaced with my original character, Owen. Some dialogue and situations will been taken directly from the show but many of the scenes will be heavily altered or entirely different in response to the new main character's dynamic. (Heavily AU from the get-go, which goes without saying, so if you don't like it, please don't read it.)





	Would You Believe It?

On October 28th 1983, an infant was found abandoned on the side of a country road in the backwoods of Maine. The baby boy was freezing cold and barely breathing but still very much alive when the lone elderly woman had happened upon him on a hike through the wilderness. She hadn't even taken another breath herself before she decided to scoop up the blanketed child and take him back to her car. Driving through the early morning fog with the infant warming up in her lap, she drove towards the nearest hospital and stayed in the waiting area while a paediatrician checked the little boy over. Luckily, he had not been left out in the cold air for more than an hour and so, besides catching a brief chill, there was nothing seriously detrimental found in the results of the medical exam.

Social Services were called on arrival and, once the tests were over, the baby was handed over to the social worker that came to collect the infant. There was no possible way of tracing the family of the child, as no blood samples on record matched that of the boy, and so he was placed into circulation of the foster care system with nothing but the name that had been knitted into the blanket he was wrapped in: Owen. The surname Swan had been chosen due to the story book that his emergency foster family had read to him in order to send him off to sleep; The Ugly Duckling, and after spending two months with the middle-aged couple that were temporarily caring for him, he was taken to live with a foster family in California.

Over the years, many excuses were made as to why families couldn't continue to care for Owen Swan, whether that be that they had children of their own or the breadwinner was made redundant or, into his teenage years, his wreckless behavior and the company he kept were just too wild for their liking. Either way, by the time he had grown out of the care of Social Services, he was as alone as he had been when that elderly woman had found him abandoned on that roadside.  
Through his whole life, there had always been questions hanging over his head, the loaded question about who he really was and the simple one of why he had been abandoned by his birth parents in the first place. Owen had long since convinced himself that those feelings of resentment were gone as he navigated adult life, falling into a career as a bail-bondsman and trying to carve a place in the world after spending his whole life as a misfit. He'd settled in Boston, in a small and soulless apartment that left much to be desired. It was battered and bruised but it was his place, the only home he had ever known.

It was on the night of his twenty-eighth birthday that that had all changed, as he wished for another better year, blowing out the flame burning atop the wick of a cheap blue star candle that he had placed into the pathetic looking cupcake he had bought last-minute from a little bakery a few blocks from the apartment while he had been on the way home from a long day of working on a case. There had been a knock and he'd gone to answer the door; one hand hidden behind it, hovering over the handle of the baseball bat that leaned up against the wall. It wasn't a particularly rough neighborhood but one could never be too careful in his line of work. Plenty of people had motive to want to cause him harm, given what he did for a living. However, when hazel eyes were met with the sight of a young boy, his guard dropped and so did the hand that reached for the weapon. "Uh... can I help you?" he asked, brows furrowed as he pondered what on earth this kid could possibly be knocking on his door for, with no visible parental accompaniment.  
"Are you Owen Swan?" the boy asked, causing the bail-bondsman's brow to crease even more. Who was this kid? He'd never seen him before in his life and yet here he was, asking for him by name. He briefly wondered if this was a ploy to take him by surprise and his eyes darted up to observe the door to the stairwell, immediately back on edge as he anticipated some sort of ambush.

"Yeah. Who are you?" he asked, a little forcefully, obviously suspicious of the child despite there being no obvious signs of foul play at this point. There was still no reason to trust this boy, since he had never laid eyes on him before, at least not to his knowledge anyway.  
"My name's Henry. I'm your son." the boy replied with a toothy smile that would have melted his heart had it not been for the unbelievable words coming from his mouth. There was no possible way this could be true. He didn't have a son, it wasn't possible for him to have a child. There had been nobody since... no, he wasn't going to break his vow now and start digging into a past best left forgotten.

"Trust me, kid. You've got the wrong guy. I'm not anybody's father." Owen replied before moving to close the door on the misinformed boy. However, before he had the chance, the boy had ducked under his arm and was boldly walking into his apartment. Eyes widening, he closed the door and went in pursuit of the boy, affronted by the intrusion. "Woah, hey, kid. Kid! I don't have a son." he exclaimed, his voice raising slightly in volume as he followed Henry into the kitchen area. "Where are your parents?"

Turning to look at him with a knowing stare, the dark-haired boy asked him a chilling question about events he had sworn to himself that he would never look back on. "Ten years ago, did you go to jail for possession of stolen watches?" The silence that followed was thick with tension as Owen stared down the young boys, eyes glassy as memories from the past raced into his head from the place they had been buried in his subconscious. "Well, I ran away from home a few months ago and the police found me. I had a blood test and you were flagged as a match."

This couldn't be happening, this boy couldn't be his son. How had he not known? Why had... had she not told him? "Your mom never mentioned me?" he asked, suddenly curious as to why he was only just now hearing about all of this.

"She couldn't have. She doesn't know you." Henry replied with a shrug. "I'm adopted." Those words shattered Owen Swan's heart in an instant. This boy had been forced to lead the same life he had, abandoned by the person that was supposed to love him unconditionally and sent away to be raised by strangers. Of course, there was the small positive that he had been adopted but was that really a positive? Could that be considered a positive for him? He'd never known about this boy, his son, and so he'd never been given the choice himself. He couldn't say whether or not he could have even given this boy a better life than the one he had but he should have at least been given the chance to try.  
Emotions were running wild inside him in that moment and he couldn't push past them in order to get his mind back on track and so he did what he had done so many times before: he fled. "Give me a minute." the hazel-eyed male said breathlessly as he turned heel and sped into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. This couldn't be real, it had to be a trick; a cruel, evil trick concocted by a truly sick human being that had involved a child in their toxic little scheme. Either that or he was so exhausted that he was hallucinating this whole thing or possibly even going mad. After the life he'd led, it certainly wouldn't surprise him to learn that there had been lasting damage to his mental health. Was Henry even really there? Of course, his question was answered almost immediately by the exclamation that came from the other side of the door. The voice of the small boy was asking if there was any juice, followed quickly by an announcement that he had found what he was looking for.

Gathering what little control he could muster, he took a deep breath before opening the door and heading back out of the bathroom, immediately catching sight of Henry drinking from the bottle of fresh orange juice that he kept in his fridge. The boy looked over to him with an expectant look. "You know, we should probably get going."  
Crossing his arms and raising a brow, Owen said nothing more than, "Going where?", in response to the boy's ambiguous suggestion. As far as he was concerned, there was no going anywhere with this boy but to the police station. His parents were probably worried sick about him and the longer he was here, the harder it would be for him to get the kid to leave. Even if all of this insanity was true, he had no claim to this boy. He had a family already, he had been adopted, and he needed to get back to that.  
"I want you to come home with me." the boy responded simply, a bright smile curling onto his mouth as he spoke. The words sounded so incredibly stupid to him that it broke him out of his daze and he immediately headed for the landline that hung on the wall on the opposite side of the room.

"Okay kid, I'm calling the cops." He fully intended to do so, as this circus had gone on for long enough now that it needed to be stopped now before the kid started to develop an attachment and this became way more complicated than it already was. However, the words that came out of his mouth next gave him every reason to pause, scared stiff by the cunning rebuttle that the boy delivered. For a moment, a flash of clarity washed over him and he started to believe, if only for that moment, that this kid really could be his son.  
"Then I'll tell them you kidnapped me." Smart kid. Turning back to Henry with a sigh, he glared at the boy. He knew that he was stuck and this kid knew it too. There was no way that he could get out of that if Henry were to stay true to his word.

"And they'll believe you because I'm your birth father." Owen acknowledged with a defeated sigh. The simple response of "Yep" from the dark-haired boy made his eyes narrow into slits as he took in the smug expression. Too smug. That was when it clicked. "You're not gonna do that."

Even the confident "Try me" that followed wasn't enough to hide the obvious lie hidden beneath all of that confident bluster. "You're pretty good but here's the thing. There's not a lot I'm great at in life but I have one skill. Let's call it a superpower." he explained with a confident stare of his own. "I can tell when anyone is lying... and you, kid, are." With that final sentence, he reached for the phone, ready to dial 9-1-1.

"Wait!" Henry exclaimed, sounding desperate and much more child-like, all of his previous smugness vanishing into thin air. "Please don't call the cops. Please? Come home with me."

Affected more than he thought he would be by the pleading child, he asked the dangerously leading question despite his own best judgement. "Where is home?"

"Storybrooke, Maine."

"Storybrooke?" Owen asked with a disbelieving frown. "Really?" His question was answered with a simple nod of Henry's head and an affirmative hum. With a sigh, he relented completely. He had to get this kid home somehow and, if he couldn't call the police, his only option was to drive him back to the stupidly named town in Maine himself. "Alrighty then. Let's get you back to Storybrooke."


End file.
